Friday, June 21, 2013

floods & flowers

Did somebody say it was summer? I can't believe today is the start of summer. We've had an extraordinary spring this year. Cool and wet. People talk about climate change. I like to refer to it as climate changed!

Here's a picture of me hugging our llama, Izaak, in mid-May. Uh, yeah, I'm wearing a winter coat and a hat. That's how cool it was.

Rain followed the cool weather. Lots and lots and lots of rain.

Our tiny town is about 10 miles north of where the Iowa and Cedar rivers converge. We had a lot of standing water around our property. We considered ourselves lucky. Some of our neighbors were not so lucky.

A house along the Cedar River.

We live south of the University of Iowa where, they have learned from previous experience, to take flooding seriously. Notice how high the Iowa River is to the bridge.

The cool weather continued and the downpours lessened. Then this happened....flowers everywhere!

This peony was extremely hard to photograph and I never succeeded. It is actually white with the outermost leaves in the lightest shade of pink. I have a wide variety of very old peonies and this is definitely one of my favorites.

Peony and dogwood.

Below is a close-up of a ninebark shrub. It's called "Diablo".

This rose totally exploded this year. We transplanted it seven years ago from a beautiful 1850s farmhouse that was knocked down. The owner said it was a very old rose that was planted right next to the house and never did very well. We've given it a bit of TLC and she rewarded us with weeks of blooms. She's still blooming right now.

As you can see, I was just beginning to enjoy spring when summer came along! Although, I'm going to enjoy the summer, too. Every stinking moment of it, because we have grass, lots of grass for the livestock. After last year's drought, it's a huge relief.